Method for Indicating the Context of a Call to a Called Party

ABSTRACT

In embodiments of the disclosed technology, a plurality of ratings of websites is received, wherein each rating is associated with a category and a rater and each rater is associated with at least one group. A selection of a category is received from the user, wherein the user is associated with at least one group. One website location (or a plurality of website locations) is provided in the category to the user based on at least one rating of the plurality of ratings provided by at least one of the raters, wherein at least one group associated with the rater and at least one the group associated with the user are the same group.

FIELD

The disclosed technology relates generally to online social networksand, more particularly, to methods of using information from socialnetworks with a phone call.

BACKGROUND

Online social networks allow people to create profiles with data aboutthemselves or relevant to themselves and share content with theirfriends or others connected to them. Such networks, in some form, dateback to the 1970s and 1980s, while other new online social networks,whether they be mailing lists or entire platforms for exchangingcontent, are constantly being developed. Popular networks includeFacebook, Linkedin, MySpace, and MeetUp.com. Older networks typicallyconsisted of mailing lists and the like, such as Yahoo Groups, InternetNewsgroups, Fidonet, and so forth. Sometimes, the fact that a person isa member of such a service indicates the group (i.e., a person whosubscribes to the “New Jersey Lawyers Mailing List”) is a member of agroup of New Jersey lawyers. Alternately, a group can be indicatedwithin the social network platform (i.e., a member of Linkedin mightjoin an “Animal Lovers” group and be listed amongst others who aremembers).

These groups are an improvement over e-mail by itself, becausecommunication is, or can be, provided in the context of the group withwhich one is associated. An e-mail from someone on a mailing listtypically indicates the name of the mailing list in the subject line. Amessage from a user on a social network typically displays, or candisplay, the name of a group in which both parties are members. Thesegroup designations are limited to their usages on the online socialnetworks,

In a different technology realm—the telephone—the device predates theonline social networks. However, the telephone lacks the ability todesignate a group. While ANI and CallerID (Caller Identification)protocols are known, such protocols only deliver to a called party aphone number, and sometimes a name, of a calling party. The called partywill not know in what context the call is being made.

Prior art patents have attempted to bridge this gap. For example, U.S.Pat. No. 6,310,944 to Brisebois et al. discloses the generation ofcontext information in phone calls, such location data, which may begiven to a called party. U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,792 to Brown et al.discloses passing on data to the called party such as location,scheduling information, path of the call, billing information, and thelike. U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,870 to Leung et al. discloses prompting thecalling party to enter more information to be passed on to the calledparty. However, these inventions, while providing some context to thecall, are often limited to general information (i.e, caller location)and cannot provide data indicating a specific relationship or jointgroup identity between the calling party and called party.

SUMMARY

An object of the disclosed technology is to allow a user receiving acall to receive data indicating context of the call by exhibiting to thecalled party a group to which both the calling party and called partybelong.

It is a further an object of the disclosed technology to send to thecalling party group data gleaned from online social networks.

An embodiment of the disclosed technology includes indicating thecontext of a communication from a calling party to a called party. Anonline social network profile of each party is linked to a phone numberassociated with each respective party. At least one group associatedwith each profile is determined, and at least a name of the group issent to the called party upon the calling party placing a call to thecalled party.

In an embodiment of the disclosed technology, a device is configured toindicate the context of a communication from a calling party to a calledparty. A data communication pathway exists between an online socialnetwork profile of each party and a phone system. An association devicedetermines at least one group associated with each profile. Acommunication device sends (which may include initiating the sending of)at least a name of the group to the called party upon the calling partyplacing a call to the called party.

The device may further have a calling device for initiating and sendingover a network, communication between the calling party and the calledparty. The communication may be over a phone network. The sending maycomprise sending of CallerID information and/or sending an instantmessage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a high level flowchart of devices and methods ofembodiments of the disclosed technology.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart of a method of carrying out anembodiment of the disclosed technology from the perspective of a server.

FIG. 3 shows data which may be retrieved from an online social networkin an embodiment of the disclosed technology.

FIG. 4 shows a device on which embodiments of the disclosed technologymay be carried out.

FIG. 5 shows a high-level block diagram of a computer that may be usedto carry out the disclosed technology.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the disclosed technology allow a user who is receiving acall to receive data indicating context of the call by exhibiting to thecalled party an online social network group to which both the callingparty and called party belong. The context of a communication from acalling party to a called party is determined based on the groupassociations in the online social network of the parties, such as theirprofiles, and each party is linked to a phone number associated witheach respective party. When the call is made, the group association ofboth parties is sent with the call, such as with the CallerIDinformation.

FIG. 1 shows a high level flowchart involving embodiments of thedisclosed technology. Calling Party 110 is a person, or deviceassociated with a specific person, legal entity, device, or the like,which is associated with a specific phone number. Via data pathway 112,the calling party 110 queries an online social network database 130 witha phone number of the calling party 110 and a phone number of the partyto be called, herein referred to as the called party 120. The OnlineSocial Network Database 130 responds via data pathway 114 with the nameof at least one group association of which both the calling party 110and called party 120 are members.

Alternatively, the calling party 110, or a device associated with thecalling party 110, such as a device of a service provider of the callingparty, may already be populated with data, such as an online socialnetwork profile name of the calling party 110, and may query thedatabase 130 for a group association of the called party 120, which alsoexists within the profile of the calling party 110.

Data pathway 112 and data pathway 114 may be the same data pathway ormay be two separate pathways. The data pathways 112 and 114 may be anyone of, for example, a data link between a phone service provider and anInternet (packet switched) network connection, an internal networkconnection between two devices, or within the same device as a phoneservice provider (such as when data is cached locally), a connectionbetween a device operated by the calling party 110 and an Internetconnection, and so forth. Data pathway 114, though shown returning tothe calling party 110, may, in fact, go directly to called party 120,for example, in that an instant message with at least group data is sentto the calling party. An instant message is a message which is designedto, or does, appear to or notify the recipient upon receipt by therecipient. This may take the form of a text message such as SMS (simplemessage syndication) or message sent over a service such as AIM, ICQ, orthe like.

In an embodiment of the disclosed technology, no further actions arecarried out. The recipient is simply notified of an attempt or desire onthe part of the calling party 110 to place a call to the called party120. The notification includes sending at least a name of a group to thecalled party upon the calling party placing a call (which includes anyaction, such as dialing the phone digits, selecting the user from alist, or clicking on a button to the call party) to the called party.

Referring still to FIG. 1, in another embodiment of the disclosedtechnology, a call is placed over a phone network 116 from the callingparty 110 to the called party 120. Along with, or separate from thephone call, data is sent, such as within the CallerID (CallerIdentification) protocol. The data includes at least a group name. Thephone network 116 may be a POTS (plain old telephone service) system, aVoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system, a combination of POTS andVoIP, or any other phone system configured to allow at least two partiesto communicate aurally.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the Online Social Network Database 130comprises many entries 132. When queried with a phone number associatedwith a calling party 110, namely, “555-1212,” it is determined that thisnumber is associated with a profile of calling party 110.(Alternatively, and as partially described above, such a database may bequeried with any identifier linking the calling party to his profile orentry within the online social network.) The database 130 is furtherqueried with the number to be dialed, namely, 555-2121. In embodimentsof the disclosed technology, the number is first converted into adesired format. For example, if a person dials a number,“011-972-2-555-2121,” it may be desired to query the database with“02-555-2121” as, depending on where one is dialing from, the digitsdialed are differently. Thus, in embodiments of the disclosedtechnology, even multiple queries may take place to determine either orboth the profile of the calling party or called party, due to changes inthe way a phone number is represented in different places or ondifferent social network platforms.

Upon a successful query, the numbers lead to profiles. Here, 555-1212will return a profile of calling party 110 and 555-2121 will return aprofile of called party 120. Then, an intersection of groups of whichthe parties (i.e., their profiles) are members is queried. In this case,both calling party 110 and calling party 120 belong to group 150. Thus,at least the name of group 150 is returned as an answer to the query. Itis this datum which is passed via data pathway 114 and/or 116 to thecalled party 120. Then, on a device such as a CallerID device 122 or anyother electronic or aural means for exhibiting the data, the name ofgroup 150 is exhibited to the called party.

FIG. 3 shows data which may be retrieved from an online social networkin an embodiment of the disclosed technology. The online social networkdatabase 130 (also shown in FIG. 1) is generally known in the art invarious embodiments. As referenced in the “Background,” common onlinesocial networks known in the art at the time of this writing includeFacebook, Linkedin, Meetup.com, e-mail mailing lists (such as YahooGroups or Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager), and so forth.Substantially any electronic method or device of connecting a pluralityof users based on a common interest or common topic may be used inembodiments of the disclosed technology. Such a method or device needonly have the ability to be queried with a phone number, username, orother identification of a calling party and return a group name and aphone number of a called party. In the case where the social network isa mailing list, the name of the mailing list may be the group name, anda script may be used to search for a phone number of a called partywithin messages sent to the mailing list, to determine that both thecalling party and called party are members of such a group. The callingparty may, before a phone call, initiate a search of such messages, inorder to pre-configure phones numbers of those in the group.

Referring again to FIG. 3, profile 310 comprises data associated withcalling party 110, and profile 320 comprises data associated with calledparty 320. These data may be stored in a database as is known in the art(such as MySQL, Oracle, MS Access, etc.) and/or may be garnered frome-mails or messages sent by users to a specific group. In the lattercase, the group memberships 360, 362, 364, and/or 366 are populated withthe name of the group from which the information was garnered. Profile310 may comprise a username 330, real name 340, phone number 350, groupmemberships 360, 362, and 364, and a picture 370. Profile 320 maycomprise a username 332, real name 342, phone number 352, groupmemberships 362 and 366, and picture 372.

Typically, a user of an online social network will have access to atleast some profile data and/or messages sent by other users who are partof the same social group. Where access to at least a phone number of acalled party is provided to a calling party (including a deviceassociated with or put in action as a direct result of a phone callplaced or attempted to be placed by a calling party), the calling partyreceives a response back from such a query of at least a phone number ofthe called party and can determine that the called party is in the samegroup. In the example shown in FIG. 3, calling party 110 has a profile310, and called party 120 has a profile 320, which are both associatedwith group 362. Thus, when placing a call from calling party 110 tocalled party 120, the group membership 366 is sent to the called party.The sending may be or is initiated via CallerID or instant message, asdescribed above.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart of a method of carrying out anembodiment of the disclosed technology from the perspective of a server.In step 210, a server, such as a web server and/or a provider of a phoneservice. receives an indication of a party to call from a calling party,such as by receiving the digits to be dialed. This may occur by way of acalling party dialing digits into his/her cellular phone, POTS phone,VoIP phone, or a “soft” phone (i.e., a computer implemented method ofdialing a phone number). In step 220, data are received from a socialnetwork profile associated with the calling party, such as the datashown in FIG. 3. In step 230, data are retrieved from a social networkprofile of the called party. The data retrieved may be sent to a devicecarrying out embodiments of the disclosed technology, or may beretrieved by the social network database for purposes of providing agroup name to the server in which both the calling party and calledparty are members. This is accomplished in step 240, wherein theintersection of the memberships of the calling party and called partyare found and returned in a query. After the query information has beenreturned, or concurrently with the query, in step 250 a call is placedfrom the calling party to the called party, and in step 260 the groupassociation of the parties which was deduced in step 240, or at least aportion thereof, is sent to at least the called party. In this manner,the called party may be notified of the context of the calling party'sphone call to the called party.

FIG. 4 shows a device on which embodiments of the disclosed technologymay be carried out. Calling party 410 represents a handset or othercalling device used to initiate voice communications (analog or digital)with another. Called party 420 represents a handset or other callingdevice used to receive voice communications (analog or digital) fromanother. A phone switch 430, situated on a network at a location betweencalling party 410 and called party 420 guides the call from the callingparty 410 to the called party 420. The phone switch may be at a locationof, or integrated with, the calling party 410 device, or may be at alocation of a phone service provider. Before or while making the call,the phone switch 420, having Internet connectivity) or being pre-loadedwith group information data—not shown), sends data over apacket-switched network, such as the Internet 440, to an online socialnetwork 450. A server 460 of the online social network receives therequest which comprises information about the calling party 410 andcalled party 420 (such as their phone numbers or other information asdescribed above with reference to any one of FIGS. 1-3). The server 460,which may be, or is integrated with, a unitary device with the onlinesocial network database 470, queries the online social network databasefor further information with regard to the profiles of the parties. Thisresult of the query may be the name of a group to which both partiesbelong. Such resulting data may then be sent back over the Internet 440to the phone switch 430, which passes the group information along to thecalled party 420, such as in the form of CallerID information or aninstant message, as described above. A called party 420 device thenexhibits the group information to the called party, informing the calledparty of a context of the call.

FIG. 5 shows a high-level block diagram of a computer that may be usedin practicing the disclosed technology. Computer 500 contains aprocessor 504 that controls the overall operation of the computer byexecuting computer program instructions which define such operation. Thecomputer program instructions may be stored in a storage device 608(e.g., magnetic disk, database) and loaded into memory 512 whenexecution of the computer program instructions is desired. Thus, thecomputer operation will be defined by computer program instructionsstored in memory 512 and/or storage 508, and the computer will becontrolled by processor 504 executing the computer program instructions.Computer 500 also includes one or a plurality of input networkinterfaces for communicating with other devices via a network (e.g., theInternet). Computer 500 also includes one or more output networkinterfaces 516 for communicating with other devices. Computer 500 alsoincludes input/output 524, representing devices which allow for userinteraction with the computer 500 (e.g., display, keyboard, mouse,speakers, buttons, etc.). One skilled in the art will recognize that animplementation of an actual computer will contain other components aswell, and that FIG. 5 is a high level representation of some of thecomponents of such a computer for illustrative purposes. It should alsobe understood by one skilled in the art that the method and devicesdepicted in FIGS. 1 through 4 may be implemented on a device such as isshown in FIG. 5.

The foregoing Detailed Description is to be understood as being in everyrespect illustrative and exemplary, but not restrictive, and the scopeof the invention disclosed herein is not to be determined from theDetailed Description, but rather from the claims as interpretedaccording to the full breadth permitted by the patent laws. It is to beunderstood that the embodiments shown and described herein are onlyillustrative of the principles of the present invention and that variousmodifications may be implemented by those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the invention. Those skilled inthe art could implement various other feature combinations withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the invention.

1. A method of indicating the context of a communication from a callingparty to a called party comprising: determining a social network profilefor the calling party and for the called the party; determining at leastone group associated with both profiles; and sending at least a name ofthe group to the called party upon the calling party placing a call tothe called party.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the social networkprofile is an online social network profile.
 3. The method of claim 2wherein the social network profile is determined for a party by linkingthe party's profile to the party's telephone number
 4. The method ofclaim 3, further comprising: initiating, over a network, communicationbetween the calling party and the called party.
 5. The method of claim4, wherein the communication is over a phone network.
 6. The method ofclaim, wherein the name of the group is sent to the called party usingCallerID information.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the name of thegroup is sent to the called party via an instant message.
 8. A deviceconfigured to indicate the context of a communication from a callingparty to a called party comprising: means for determining a socialnetwork profile for the calling party and for the called the party;means for determining at least one group associated with both profiles;and means for sending at least a name of the group to the called partyupon the calling party placing a call to the called party.
 9. The deviceof claim 8, wherein the social network profile is an online socialnetwork profile.
 10. The device of claim 9 wherein the social networkprofile is determined for a party by linking the party's profile to theparty's telephone number
 11. The device of claim 10, further comprisingmeans for initiating over a network, communication between the callingparty and the called party
 12. A device configured to indicate thecontext of a communication from a calling party to a called partycomprising: a data communication pathway between an online socialnetwork profile of each the party and a phone system; an associationdevice which determines at least one group associated with each profile;and a communication device configured to send at least a name of thegroup to the called party upon the calling party placing a call to thecalled party.
 13. The device of claim 14, further comprising: a callingdevice for initiating, over a network, communication between the callingparty and the called party.
 14. The device of claim 14, wherein thecommunication is over a phone network.
 15. The device of claim 15,wherein the name of the group is sent to the called party via CallerID.16. The device of claim 16, wherein the name of the group is sent to thecalled party via an instant message.
 17. A computer-readable storagemedium comprising instructions for indicating the context of acommunication from a calling party to a called party, the instructionsfurther comprising: Instructions to determine a social network profilefor the calling party and for the called the party; Instructions to atleast one group associated with both profiles; and Instructions to sendat least a name of the group to the called party upon the calling partyplacing a call to the called party.
 18. The computer-readable storagemedium of claim 17, wherein the social network profile is an onlinesocial network profile.
 19. The computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 18 wherein the social network profile is determined for a party bylinking the party's profile to the party's telephone number
 20. Thecomputer readable storage medium of claim 19, further comprisinginstructions for initiating, over a network, communication from thecalling party to the the party.